Cruiser
by gschelt
Summary: Pansy thinks about the girl she wants and the life she wants out of, while driving her car and picking up Muggle girls. Chapter 6, summer's over. Future Pansy/Hermione.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note**: I have no idea what this is, but I ran with it. It's different for me because there's OC action, and also the femslash aspect actually rides backseat to the angst. Anyway, enjoy. There's a bunch more coming for this story. I own nothing._

* * *

My favorite thing about summer had to be Muggles.

I sat stiffly on a plastic chair, uncrossing my legs, which were sticking together. Recross, right over left. The clock above the table stacked with magazines ticked dully, and a bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck.

Yeah, it had to be Muggles.

Muggles and their waiting rooms, their auto-garages, their mechanics' daughters… All of their daughters, really, when it came to the summer holidays, but this particular June before my sixth year it was this particular daughter. Just as her father was working on my muffler and she was working on my paperwork, I was working on her. It was that whole, "Oh, you go to boarding school, and oh, you're so cool, aren't you?" … That sort of thing that made the innocent "high school" girls so drawn to me. Oh, but listen to me brag. _Muggles_. They were so naive and easy to impress, it was hardly a challenge.

My advantage? Maybe magic, maybe just something in my demeanor. Could be, because every summer it was always the sweet girls.

Daughters.

"All right, miss."

The mechanic stood in the doorway, mopping sweat from his brow with an oily handkerchief. He spoke like the Groundskeeper Hagrid, but he wasn't nearly as big and his entire head was as smooth as a cue ball but for a bit of stubble.

I rose from the yellow chair, the backs of my thighs peeling off the sweat-sticky plastic, and stretched my long legs. Too-long legs. I was gangly and skinny as a rake and nearly flat-chested, and I wore my shorts loose, my t-shirts plain, and my black hair shaggy. I looked like a teenage boy, but I didn't really care. Outside of Hogwarts I ditched the makeup and all other girly pretenses; there was no one, including myself or my parents, to care. Besides, the androgyny wasn't bad enough for the mechanic to call me sir or the girls to flirt back because they thought I was a bloke; my lashes were long and dark even without mascara.

I followed the mechanic back to the garage and around to my emerald-green Model-T. It was a wonder that Pureblood parents like mine deigned to let me drive around in a beat-up Muggle car, but they hardly concerned themselves with anything I got up to when I was home. I had bought it dirt-cheap from a Muggle in the next town who was moving to New Zealand, and had spent all of last summer fixing it up. All I had really bought it for was to ride around town in, as a change from my bicycle or simply walking. I was getting it tuned-up now because it had been a year since the car had been driven, because the mechanic had a daughter my age, because I had nothing to do. A drive into town, an hour or two killed in the waiting room.

I tended to spend my time drifting.

"Basic oil change, tires reinflated and rotated, checked out your battery and engine…"

As he talked I walked around the car, inspecting it and nodding. He showed me where he tightened the car's brakes, and I thanked him. He shook my hand and told me to go back up front for my bill.

"Alright, thanks again," I said to him as I made my way back to the door. The waiting room was still empty and the heat was still unaffected by the fans when I walked in. I wandered over to the desk and toyed with the ballpoint pen chained to it.

"Be there in a minute," a girl's voice rang out from a back room.

"Okay," I replied.

I could just hear Draco's voice; "What makes you think she'll like _you_?" He wouldn't mean compatibility in terms of looks or personality. He would mean the chances of the girl being queer too. Of course, Draco didn't even know I fancied girls; he still saw himself as my only possible option. But still, it was the exact sort of thing he would say; that is, if he knew I liked girls, if he knew I specialized in Muggles, if he ever visited me over holiday, if I ever felt like confiding anything in him.

What made me think she was… my type? Well, the family business, mainly. Sure, I was typecasting if I thought working in a garage over the summer made this girl a dyke, but come on. It was a perfectly legitimate guess.

And besides, half the time it didn't even matter which way they swung. I guess I just had something about me that… oh, but listen to me brag. Straight or gay, there really wasn't a whole lot to it anyways. _Muggles_.

"Hey, long time no see."

I looked up to see the mechanic's daughter come through the door behind the desk, pulling her hair into a ponytail and grinning at me. She was excited to see me, I could tell, but she was trying to play it cool. I smiled back and leaned closer, playing my part.

"Yeah, no shit. What's it been, forty-eight hours?"

She laughed and looked down at some papers she had brought in. The corners of her eyes and mouth both turned up. _Coy_. "Give or take a minute or two. Now let me finish filling out your bill, 'kay?"

I nodded and discreetly kept my eyes on her while she grabbed the ballpoint pen and scribbled on the papers on the desk; had to make sure she felt my eyes on her, checking her out. It made the silence tenser and the girl feel magnetic.

She was pretty, there was no doubt about that. I had been surprised the first time I saw her; I was expecting a butch grease-monkey type. Don't get me wrong, the butch girls are hot in their own way, but when I met the mechanic's daughter and saw a cute, curvy tomboy with long copper-colored hair and a sprinkling of freckles, I was pleasantly surprised. She was cute as hell, easygoing, and simple enough without being vapid. Not that that really mattered either, when it came down to the way I never paid attention and never was too choosy with these girls.

"Here you go," she said, circling a sum at the bottom of the page and handing it to me. Her eyes glittered as she smiled. I took the paper, folded it up, and put it in my back pocket as she leaned over the counter, propped on her elbows. Here comes casual conversation.

"So, what are your plans for today? Gonna cruise around town a bit, maybe go walking broodingly?"

I matched her mischievous smile with my own. "Yeah, something like that. I was thinking I'd stop and talk to some pretty girls too, if I have time."

She cocked her head and bit her lip, not missing a beat. Her grin only widened. "Well, sounds like fun."

"Loads." My voice lowered rapidly as I leaned in closer. I could almost feel her breath on my cheek. "So what are _your _plans for tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? Well, I-"

"Tomorrow night, that is," I interrupted.

She looked down again, her nerves and excitement leaking through her casual and flirty front. Bit the lip again, a tinge of color to her cheeks. Her smile got smaller but felt much fuller. "Nothing, really."

"Great, I'll pick you up at eight-thirty." By the time I said this, we had drifted so close together that our lips were inches apart, and I was whispering. I bet she could feel my words in my breath, the air on her mouth. I bet her heart was pounding, her hand trembling on that ballpoint pen. I knew the answer was yes even without her saying anything. How could it be anything else?

Our foreheads bumped and I grinned slowly. I pulled back from that close proximity and backed away, swinging my arms and still smiling like we shared a secret. "Is that okay with you?" I said, louder this time, as I backed towards the door.

"Sure," she said, a smile spreading across her lips. "I'll see you then."


	2. Chapter 2

I'd meant to learn to play the guitar or the drums, something loud and normal to keep my hands busy and drown out my house; not just another way to impress the stupid Muggle girls. I never understood music, and had always wanted to; the way it all came together from chords and lyrics and emotion, from scratch. That's why I always went to the record store in town, never able to get enough. I had over a hundred records, stacked in hat boxes under my bed. Music was just something I collected and listened to, like that. Something I eavesdropped on. But not something I felt like I could be a part of myself.

I'd meant to find a car in another color, like turquoise or silver. Just so the Model-T wasn't another green possession I kept. Just so I could break the pattern for once. My bedspread and curtains and linens were green, mine and my parents' dress robes were all green. My eyes were green. I didn't hate the color, but I'd an unsettling sensation that it had become me. From my parents choosing it as a color scheme for all my things since I was a child, to the Sorting Hat choosing (confirming) it as the color of my blood when I was eleven, to my own unconscious preference for the color even now. Green was automatic. It was my heritage and my future and my legacy. It was me, wasn't it? Turquoise or silver or crimson would have been nice, though. For the car, at least.

I'd meant to tell Draco to fuck off and find himself a new girlfriend. Hell, I still meant to do it. One of these days. We weren't even official or anything; we'd never _done_ anything together either, for that matter. Nothing beyond him grabbing my hand while we walked, me gritting my teeth. Him putting a possessive arm around my shoulder. It was just what was expected. The rest of the Slytherins, teachers, anyone really, they all expected us together. He expected it. I expected it too, I guess. I didn't want it, I didn't like it; but I couldn't think of anything else _being_. That was the shitty part.

I'd meant to stop going along with Draco to Malfoy Manor over Christmas break, too. Complying was a terrible way of trying to distance myself. Was I really even trying? No, I knew I wasn't. Going home with Draco only cemented me further as his _betrothed_, and I wasn't motivated enough to do anything about it. When the Hogwarts Express rolled to a halt, we'd step off the train together, wincing from the steam choking the platform but keeping our heads high and shoulders touching all the while. His mother would float into sight, standing alone, at a distance from the common queue, and he'd break contact with me to embrace her cordially. Narcissa would touch my cheek, tell me it had been too long, and after a slight curling smile at me we would depart. The entire holiday would be spent lounging about lavishly austere rooms, saying barely a word. Lucius was hardly ever home, but when he was he would greet me, ask a few curt questions, and that was that. Draco would spend a lot of time playing cards alone, or riding in the orchard. Narcissa was really the one who paid me most attention, but that hardly entailed more than a few words here and there. I didn't know if spending the holidays at home would be much better, though.

I'd meant to just pack up and leave this place someday, but I didn't know what I'd do or where I'd go. Maybe I would give magic up for good and live among Muggles. Maybe it could be that simple, and maybe I wanted it as strongly as the pull of my skin towards the door told me I did. But everyone wanted something, and this might have just been another of those stupid somethings that every single person alive had. Something like wanting to be Minister of Magic, or wanting your parents to be alive again, or wanting to get perfect marks. Something like wanting to fall in love with a Mudblood. But sometimes the wants were just too easily ignored because they seemed so distant they were almost transparent.


	3. Chapter 3

Shifting and grating and grinding, push pull push pull push pull push. She'd be thinking of it as tire rotation, way down there below me. Six inches, sixty feet of distance. Didn't matter. She'd be thinking in terms of gears and levers, wouldn't she? Maybe not necessarily, because I wasn't seeing toadstools and cauldrons and other magical shit I hated behind closed eyes, nor was my hand with a mind of its own saying…

_Swish and flick._

Oh, shut the fuck up.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and guttered forced breath just above her right shoulder. (Tailpipe exhaust… was my breath opaque?). She was quiet but for small moaning noises, eyes screwed up tight like mine, maybe concentrating. My stomach turned when I thought what a mechanic's daughter like her might be thinking right now…

Engine's overheating-

I reached up to push my hair off my sweaty forehead, pumping my index and middle fingers harder.

"Oh god," she groaned, her first words in twenty minutes. The car was rocking, her knuckles on the armrest were white, the leather was slick.

I sure was classy, wasn't I? Creaking Model-T, ungracious finger thrusting, somber silence. Yeah, real romantic.

"Oh god," she said again, her flushed face twisting. She bucked in rhythm with my thrusts, then faster, then it turned into a shudder, then she deflated with a gasp.

I propped myself up, panting, with my black hair hanging in my eyes again. "Did you…?" I whispered hoarsely.

"Yeah," she said, biting her lip, "I think so. Do you want me to…?"

"No," I replied, shaking my head slowly. I climbed back over to the driver's seat and pushed back my hair, sighing. "That's okay."

She dug around in the back seat until she found her T-shirt, and slowly pulled it on after she redid the clasp on her shorts. "Are you sure?" she asked tentatively. "I'd hate to go without returning the-"

"No, really," I interrupted. As I rolled down the windows and started the engine, I lit a cigarette. "That's all I need," I mumbled as I took a drag and began to back out. The headlights painted the deserted hilltop and the lamps from the town in the distance winked lazily under the stars.

* * *

_Swish and flick._

The brown hair and freckles blinked in and out since they weren't real. Just behind my eyelids, a memory, an idea of a girl grasped on to with trembling fingers just a half an hour ago finished with a mechanic's daughter.

_Swish and flick._

I bit down on my lower lip hard enough fit to break the skin. The sweat was for real this time, sticking the sheets to my back. Quiet but for crickets chirping and the curtains billowing. Dark but for the moonlight streaming into my bedroom… and the stars blossoming behind my eyelids.

I hitched in a breath. She wasn't in my car. She wasn't in anyone's dormitory, or an empty classroom. She would have to be… lying supine in some patch of grass. Sunlight on her pale skin, dandelions poking their heads out around her tangled hair. And she would be smiling, then slack with nameless ecstasy… not shy and then looking pained like the mechanic's daughter.

But I chose not to think of her. She had asked to return the favor, because usually that's how it's done when two people fuck, but I knew I would rather just do it myself. Because I knew by now that one girl always seemed to be sliding through my mind when my body went hazy, like it was now. And it wouldn't have done well to have said another girl's name.

"Oh, bloody-"

It escaped my mouth as one slow rotation of my middle finger on my clit caused a sudden surge of heat to buzz through my veins and caused my hips to twitch involuntarily.

Yeah, I think I would let her touch me. I think with her I would even take my time.

_Swish and flick._


	4. Chapter 4

_I sit quietly in my chair, a perfect little statue. The antique grandfather clock groans as it ticks; the timbers of the majestic old manor creak too as the wind howls outside, causing flurries of snow to gust against the spotless windowpanes. I sit so still and calm, it's like I'm frozen. It's as though I'm another marble sculpture out in the garden, poised in a gathering snowdrift next to a birdbath. A shiver runs through me._

_She looks up from her novel, looks up through her thick lashes, and parts her lips, clasping her hands in her lap._

_"Have you caught a chill, Pansy dear?" Her voice rings across the parlor clear and colorless, politely and curiously curt._

_"I'm alright," I answer, coloring slightly, and return to the book in my own hands. She makes a satisfied tch-ing noise and turns her attention from me. I stare at the pages in front of me for a few more minutes, barely breathing (calm still cold stone __perfect statue), until the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I look up to find her ice-colored eyes upon me._

_"My dear, are you sure you're quite comfortable?" she articulates softly, easily. Her proud chin is pointed in my direction. "You've been sitting in that chair ever so stiffly, I do believe I've not yet seen you move a muscle." She herself has barely blinked in the hour we've been sitting here._

_"No, I'm alright."_

_She continues to regard me with that piercing stare of hers, flexing her fingers together in her lap, and I look down as a blush floods back to my cheeks._

_"Pansy, darling."  
I look up again._

_"Come here, please." She is sitting very straight, her hands folded properly in her lap. Her face is perfectly measured in haughtiness and faint interest, and not a thread of her silvery-blonde hair is out of place. If she'd had a daughter, besides or instead of Draco, (I wouldn't have minded instead of), she would have been brought up so… so… so much like her. A perfect copy, twin ice sculptures._

_I stand slowly and step across the rug towards her. Careful, measured steps. Today, right now, I don't want to be that clumsy and awkward girl. Not in front of her. I stop before her and stand silently, wringing my hands behind my back where she can't see. She sits for a moment, studying me, then rises to her feet. She's more than a head taller than me; her spine is as straight as an arrow and her posture is perfect. Her chin tilts up gracefully as she looks down at me through her heavy-lidded eyes, and she wets her lips._

_"Pansy, how old are you now?" she says quietly, with as much emotion as the simple question requires._

_"Twelve," I reply meekly. "Thirteen in a week and a half."  
She regards me for a moment and then, wordlessly, crosses the rug to the divan and lowers herself onto it. Her movements are elegant as that of an iceberg.  
"Please come here." I obey._

_I stand before her, holding my breath, but she does not meet my eyes. It is as though the effort is not worth her time, as though she hardly notices I am there at all. Still, I make no movement and no sound. We stay like this for a minute or two, in silence but for the wind, the clock, her perfectly even and my perfectly uneven breathing. Finally, she speaks to me:_

_"Give me your hand."_

_I drag my hand forward, and it hangs limply from my wrist. Her slender, cold fingers take mine and guide me closer. As she holds my hand close in front of her, I feel the cold sting of her ring on my knuckle._

_Then she slowly guides it down, whispering faintly against the fabric of her violet robes._

_"M-Madame Malf-"_

_"Shhh," she soothes distractedly. Her ice-like eyes are focused on the progression of my hand in hers, pausing at her waist as she parts her lips with something like curious anticipation. I want to question her but I'm afraid of looking foolish. I'm afraid of looking foolish and I want to please her. I want her to smile faintly, rewardingly, and tell me I'm a good girl. Still, I have idea what she's doing or what she wants me to do. My hand trembles._

_"Don't be frightened," she says softly, woodenly, and though the words are meant to be calming she still doesn't look me in the eye. Her eyes are focused on our hands, fused together; the creature finds the opening of her robes and enters. It seems both of us are/were on the verge of gasping, but she stifles her anticipation and I my shock._

_At this point I'm too overwhelmed to feel scared or confused or even aroused. Had my numb swirl of emotions been coherent, I would probably have been confused about why she's doing this. Scared of Draco or his father coming in and finding me doing this, of being a bad girl, of what will happen once my fingers get past the silky material they're grazing. I don't know what's going on but I'm not sure I like it._

_A slow progression of movement and I find my first two fingers pressed against a warm, moist spot. Her face is pinched in pained concentration, with her knuckles going white on the edge of the divan. I stand limply, dumbstruck, as her hand and mine begin to move circularly. She grips my wrist gently but I still feel like a prisoner._

_I'm not making a single sound of protest; now I'm back to being the girl-shaped statue, staying still and perfectly behaved. I can almost see myself, rooted to the spot there, as I drift from my body. And it's no longer me with my hand in my hostess' robes; it's the carving of a black-haired girl instead, doing exactly as it's told. Being perfectly behaved, perfectly behaved, perfectly behaved, perfectly behaved…_

_"Hush now, Pansy, don't cry," she whispers silkily, through now-uneven breathing.  
_

_

* * *

  
_

My eyes flew open, but instead of bolting upright in bed like the cliché, I lay quite still for a moment, gathering my disorientation. _Statuesquely_. The word occurring to me turned my tongue sour, so I rolled over and heaved myself out of bed.

I stood shakily, running a hand through my tangled nighttime hair as new cold sweat rolled down my back, mingling with the stale sweat already dried from my encounter with the mechanic's daughter a few hours earlier. My tank top clung to my skin, breathing with the rising and falling of my chest as I tried to get my shallow respiration back under control. Crossing the carpet to my open window, I stood in the moonlight and squeezed my eyes shut.

The dream had been so vivid, one of the most real in all the many times I'd dreamt it over four years. Almost as real as when I'd actually…

A shudder passed through me, and I hugged my bare, bony arms close. Taking a cigarette and a match from my bureau, I sat on the windowsill and draped a leg over the edge. As I took the first, second, and third drags, feeling the wind ruffling my hair and raising goose bumps on my skin, I leaned back in exhaustion and willed my jitters to drain away. It was only a dream, nothing but a nightmare.

I closed my eyes and willed it to only have ever been a nightmare.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's Note**: By now, I'm pretty sure this story is my favorite. I just love writing it. Review review review :)_

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The sun beat down on the leather and cotton and asphalt world rolling by and sticking to me, throbbing on my skin. I licked a salty bead of sweat off my upper lip and refused to let the heat bother me. Everything around me seemed washed out, bland and dry and colorless. It was all just so… sunny. Still, the shades helped. My mirror-lens aviators stuck to the bridge of my nose, clinging with the convenient sheen of sweat on most of my body. My face, turned defiantly to the nearly-nonexistent breeze, sweating. My left arm, draped lazily over the convertible's door, sweating. The fingers of my right hand, curled on the hard steering wheel, sweating. My thighs, melting with the fabric of my jeans to the leather of the seat to all the gears and levers beneath that… sweating. All of it oozing together and dripping, like a Popsicle, onto the faded gray asphalt of the road. Every summer day seemed hazy and colorless, like this, to me.

I was driving through town, as usual. A loose white tank top clung to my skinny frame and a limp, off-brand cigarette dangled from my lip as I tried to decide where to go. The idea occurred to me that it would be a good idea to stop at the mechanic's and visit his daughter, but I heaved a sigh. I didn't really want to make the effort to be charming today. I didn't really feel like talking to her anymore, either. There wasn't much more to her, was there? The cute smile and freckles, the same old rehearsed flirting that I'd been through dozens of times, the sex in this car. There wasn't any more to get out of her that I wanted.

I rolled down a few more streets, drinking in the sights and smells of this tired old town like alcohol. It stung hitting the pit of my stomach, the indifference I felt looking at the post office and the library and the pawn shop, and at the people exiting and leaving with their parcels. The distaste trickled down my throat, blurring my vision and causing the sunbeams to sizzle in my eyes. My tongue felt too dry and too fat for my mouth. This place made me drunk.

For a minute I almost forgot that I was even a witch; it didn't seem a part of me at all. I'd forgotten that my favorite part of summer was Muggles, too.

After a while I settled on the public pool. After I parked, I meandered along the chain link fence, running my fingers along the rusted metal, and watched the gray sky ripple off the smooth surface of the modest little community pool. There were a few kids splashing around in the corner, but other than that the place was dead. I made my way to the small brick entrance building, paid my several quid to the teenage boy behind the front desk, and went into the women's change room.

It was dim, hazy, and humid in there; the chlorine was so pungent it was almost tangible on the slick, chipped dark green tiles. I drifted through, turning a couple corners and cutting past a row of corroded showerheads. The ends of my jeans trailed through shallow puddles of water on the floor, the ripped and ragged ends twisting and darkening like limp snakes; I didn't have a swimsuit and didn't have any reason to be here.

I didn't have anywhere else to go or anything else to do.

Stepping out into the sunlight, I wandered along the edge of the pool. I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking around idly. There was a bronzed, taut-skinned woman in a two-piece sunbathing on one of the deck chairs nearby, enormous black sunglasses obscuring her impassive face. The kids, two girls and one boy, each about ten years old, kept themselves in one corner, taking turns doing handstands underwater. A lifeguard with curly blonde hair and freckles bit his nails as he slouched in his high chair. From the far lifeguard's chair facing the opposite direction I could see a dark chestnut-colored ponytail over the top. As crosshairs materialized in front of my eyes on that ponytail, a sense of dread déjà vu sunk low, simmering, in my gut, and my feet started to move automatically. Somehow I knew when I showed up at this pool – no, when I dragged myself out of bed of bed in the morning – that my day would end up like this, looking for pretty girls to prey on. It was my summer ritual, and I knew it. It was a habit I couldn't kick even if I wanted to.

I didn't want to, right? There was no alternative to even bother thinking about.

"Hey."

She turned her head slowly, looking down her delicately aquiline nose through almond-shaped gray eyes. The sun was right behind her head like a halo, and I gripped the peeling whitewashed frame of the lifeguard's high chair.

"Hi," she said curiously, looking me up and down fractionally. Damn it, she had that halo. All else was so predictable: the set up, the lines, the smiling, the one thing that would lead to another thing to another thing, but her fucking halo was throwing me.

That was it, right? The part that was making my mouth go dry, the globe of white light blurring and darkening the edges of her head?

I smiled again, weakly, muttered something hollow, then turned on my heel and walked away; my fingers dragged on the white chair as I pulled away, lingering.

It had to be the halo, nothing to do with any illness from this repeated ritual of catch and release. Of course not.

The kids in the pool clung to the corner, telling secrets. The blonde lifeguard dozed.

I paced back through the change room, turning corners and ducking showerheads. Approaching the narrow corridor of lockers, dappled with warm gray steam from the scalding shower stalls, I saw another figure and a crumpled duffel bag sitting on a bench. She stretched upwards, the tan sunbathing woman from the poolside, pulling a thin blouse over her bare back. Catching the sound of my sneakered footsteps echoing, she looked over her shoulder. Her green eyes flashed at me challengingly and I didn't even slow my step coming towards her.

Wordlessly, we collided with the lockers, her back – blouse pushed back up – flush against the metal. I raked the skin on her hips with my fingernails as I kissed her, kissed her and scratched her and fucked her and the vapor condensed as sweat running down our arms over veins pulsing in restless anger. Something like anger.

My eyes were squeezed shut, in nothing like concentration. Skin, steam, slick metal, I was hardly there. I squeezed my eyes shut, and it was something like anger. The woman writhed against me, clawing at my neck and breathing loud. Her hair – _blonde_ – was tangled everywhere, strands tickling my tongue. Before I knew what I was doing my lip was curling into a snarl like a Doberman's, whatever vague senses I had were lost in the deliciously, dizzyingly acerbic mess of tongues and fingernails and ripping fabric. I took her wrist in my hand (everything was all swirling, eddying like a whirlpool like an _orgasm_ but no, this was an orgasm's caustic, dry-mouthed photo negative; I felt faint) and intertwined my fingers in hers as I fucked her, we fucked her. She cried out once, she cried out twice, her knees buckled but no they were mine, her legs quavered but I fell to my knees sweating, I was a statue crumbling and water on the grimy floor bled through my shins.

She zipped her duffel bag and surveyed me sitting lankly on the tiles against the lockers, and I looked into her eyes hollowly. For one long, agonizing moment I was sure she was going to ask if I was _quite comfortable sitting like that_, but she licked her lips – raw and red from my teeth – gave me one last appraising once-over, and left. I swallowed once and looked at the ceiling.

Back home, I approached my bedroom door. Several green tapestries hung on the walls of the hallway, and in my chambers the sheets, the wallpaper, the carpet, all emerald. The knob swam before my eyes, stinging like acid, and I could feel my throat choking with uneven, hitching breath; my face was crumpling like a child's. I struck out at the wall, my fist colliding with the centuries-old woodwork, and I felt all the bones in my fingers break.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note:** Okay, so I'm not updating this weekly or anywhere near weekly. But I didn't give up. I'm actually moving it along. Don't hate me! _  
_Reviewwwwwwsssssss_

* * *

I couldn't drive the Model-T to the train station; I would have had no choice but to leave it parked there during the entire term. Instead, I took two buses and one subway to get there. I left just before dawn, dragging my trunk down the lane as my parents slept, and I made it to town to catch my first bus as the sun rose.

As I wended my way through the throngs of commuters at Kings Cross Station, I felt no more awake than I was when I first left my house. Which was the same as when I'd went to bed the night before, which as all in all the same as I'd felt for weeks. Tired all of the time, I'd spent the last few weeks of my summer holiday lying in bed listening to records, smoking, or, mostly, sleeping. Sometimes I dreamed, but luckily I mainly just drifted. I just drifted and passed the time throwing darts at the green fleur-des-lis' that run up and down my wallpaper, feeling as chill and as omniscient as a fly on the wall.

So after all that, did I find it nice to be going back to school? Was it refreshing to get out of the house again, to get out of town and back to some kind of distraction? It was hard to say. It was hard to pinpoint what exactly I wanted distracting from, and getting there would probably mean solving everything. And it can never be that easy, can it?

But it was true, this year it was different. Something was different, so something must have changed to get me like this. I weaved through the crowd along the platforms with the same apathy I'd adopted over the summer; actually, I allowed myself to keep the same apathy that was my _customary_ attitude over the holiday. My customary attitude either with Muggles or alone. In previous years, I would go like this over the summer and then show up for the train with everything prepared for public. Hair, makeup, interest and effort. But this time… This time I rolled through the barrier of Platform 9 ¾ in sneakers, jeans, and a gray hoodie; hair a tousled mess, sleepless (what a paradoxical self-contradiction) purple circles under my eyes. For some reason, I hadn't bothered to make the effort I usually did. The change was something I couldn't explain.

It was no wonder, anyway, that I passed through the queue of Hogwarts students and parents like a shadow; if there was anyone worth stopping to greet me, or worth even giving me a second glance, they wouldn't have recognized me.

I couldn't board without apprehending Draco and his mother. They were right within my trajectory, and there was no time to consider another route of avoiding them, even if I wanted to. Which, of course, I didn't… My feet took me to the pair of them of their own accord.

"Oh, Pansy," Draco acknowledged, some surprise evident on his thin mouth. He lifted his eyebrows ever so slightly as he took in my scuffed black Converse sneakers. "You look different."

"Thanks," I replied curtly, standing there with my shoulders crooked and my trunk's handle warm in my right hand. I looked to Draco's mother and nodded. "Madam." It was interesting how easily the reflexive formality surged back and rolled off my tongue.

Draco's mother eyed me impassively, the only emotion on her face quaint interest. "Why Pansy, dear," she addressed me lightly, extending her hand towards me, "I hadn't realized until now how long it's been." That slender, delicate white hand, the hand I'd dreamed about many times, stretched towards me modestly; rusty etiquette guided my movements again, bringing me hunched over to pass my lips over it. Something probably only expected or necessary with a woman of her position.

"You know," she went on softly, easily, gazing down at me from her imposing height, "this androgyny really does suit you."

"Thank you," I murmured, my everything feeling curiously blank. Somehow, somewhere inside, I had stopped caring like I used to. There wasn't a reaction to be gotten from me, as there had been in the past. So I quietly, politely excused myself and walked away. Steam swirled at my shoulders and at my heels as I passed the length of the train, and I could feel a pair of eyes at my back. But they didn't pierce me; the merely pressed me. That was fitting, too, because the cast given them by their owner was mild curiosity, nothing sharp at all as would elicit a chill gripping my skin. She had never cared, so why could I?

That was a question I couldn't answer.

The train left the station five minutes later. I went to the usual compartment, stowed my trunk above the seats, and waited for everyone to arrive. Blaise, Millicent, Crabbe, Goyle, and the usual others trickled in, nodding subtle greetings to myself and one another. Small, trite questions about everyone's summer holiday bounced back and forth, but no one really cared. They wouldn't even have bothered to ask had they not been brought up with the manners of meticulous breeding. Even Millicent had been around us long enough to have picked up some poise.

Mine, however, seemed to have disappeared. Funny how things can change when you stop caring enough to put on an act.

The compartment door slid open. Draco, last of the usual clique to arrive, edged in slowly, looking behind him down the aisle and laughing. I assumed he had just tripped a first year, or something of the sort.

"Afternoon," he acknowledged smoothly, sliding the door shut behind him. His stark gray eyes flashed around the space, flickering in nimble recognition. That color, the gorgeous hue of his eyes, it was far too familiar of him and of something else, and I really didn't want to stomach it. When his gaze met mine, I saw his mother.

"Excuse me." I breezed to my feet gracefully. The ease of the movement surprised me, as I was expecting awkwardness in moving. "I feel a bit ill. I'm going to find an empty compartment to lie down."

Draco's eyes skimmed me, creased in a half-curiosity. "Sure," was all he said, crossing me to take my seat as I left. In some ways I was glad he didn't press, or even show concern, because I didn't want to explain; I didn't really even want to talk to him. In some ways, though, I wanted him to be concerned. He was, after all, my best friend.

I hated him so much.

I slid out into the aisle, shoulders braced. There were students squeezing by sporadically, in clusters with friends. It would be best to move, and quit blocking the aisle. I swayed a bit on my feet, the vertigo of the train barreling ahead and the mountains whipping by through the window throwing me off a bit, and started off to my right. Down to where it was more deserted. It was a strange sort of silence here, outside the compartments, where everyone was inside talking with and getting reacquainted with friends. I thought of first years, stuck with strangers, possibly making friends. Possibly making friends with kids they would be split with in a few short hours, kids they would be taught to hate. I tried to think back on my first time on this train, tried to remember what I'd been thinking then. All I could remember was sharing a compartment with the Patil twins, drawing dead leaves in my sketchbook and trying to be invisible as they excluded me from their conversation.

Wandering past a few more sliding doors, I crossed over into the last car. As I shut that door behind me, bracing myself against the wall so the motion of the train didn't topple me, the car rocked. The latch fumbled in my grip, and I lost my footing slightly.

"Need some help?"

It was a girl's voice, and a girl's pair of hands that came from behind me to latch on the wooden paneling and push. The door slid back into place.

"Thanks," I muttered, scratching my chin.

"It's fine," she said from behind me, withdrawing her hands. "I heard the door opening and thought it might be the trolley, and since I'm positively famished and quite pathetic I had to come out and check, but you're obviously not her-"

With a flip of my shaggy hair I turned to face the girl. It was Granger.

The look of surprise on her face as she recognized me was almost comical.

"Oh," she said, brow creasing over her unhinged jaw, "Pansy."

"Granger," I replied politely as I ran my fingers through my hair.

"You look..." she said, flustered, as she eyed me up and down, "You look different. I didn't recognize you."

"Well thanks," I responded in a low voice and looked away, a sheepish feeling coming over me.

"Well, I'd…" granger stammered, trying to keep her composure but obviously thrown off guard, "I'd better get going." With that, she turned on her heel and retreated back to her compartment, where Potter and Weasley were no doubt waiting.

"See you," I said to her back, moving past slowly. I very nearly added something else, but no other comment came to mind. Small talk wasn't my forte, especially not with someone who assumed I hated her. Granger shut her compartment door behind her neatly and I edged into an empty one four doors down.

I let out the breath that I'd been holding ever since I got out of bed that morning as I eased down onto a seat cushion. Finally, alone and able to relax. My head slid down until I was lying on the bench, one knee crooked upright and the other leg dangling off the edge. I closed my eyes and I was back home on top of my sheets. The constant clatter of the train car was instead the white noise coming from the speaker at the end of a record. I breathed again, in and out, and felt myself cooling down from the semi-anxious heat that had enveloped me since I set foot on Platform 9 ¾. Maybe it had been there even before. Either way, I realized that perhaps I wasn't ready for this. Perhaps I hadn't sufficiently prepared myself in the last weeks of the holiday for the start of the term, and everything it brought along with it. It would certainly seem so, the way I'd forgone the vestiges of makeup, clothes, and effort. This was the real me, the me that I'd never thought appropriate for anyone out in the wizarding world to see. The me reserved for my Model-T and the daughters of Muggles.

More air escaped me as I chewed my lip and swung my arm back and forth to get the blood moving. It was obvious that I'd shocked people with my appearance. Granger surfaced in my mind, those smooth lips an O of surprise. She'd been rattled by my change, but that couldn't have been all there was to it. It could have also been unregistered surprise at my attitude, placid and far from the hostility she'd come to expect from me. I wasn't even _nice_ to her, either; all I'd done was say six totally neutral words to her and she was thrown. What if I'd _smiled_? Asked about her summer? She probably would have had an aneurysm.

It said something about me, though. If hostility was all that could be expected from me, I'd evolved into a terrible person in five years of trying to keep up with Draco. And maybe hanging with him and his crowd wasn't all that had made me such a bitch; maybe something changed in me a few years back, a dream I'd woken from with new eyes, that made me hungry for approval from someone cruel like him. Made me search for amnesia or therapy in different places; cigarettes and sex came to mind. Bullying must have been another of my treatments. And I must have given up; that would at least explain why I looked like shit right now.

But I did want a cigarette more than anything right now.


End file.
